Pitts: Religious Intolerance? Baloney.
Charles Johnson
Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 11:07 am PST • Views: 172
Leonard Pitts Jr. has a good column on the Islamic cabdrivers at Twin Cities Airport: Muslim dispute: religious intolerance?
After simmering for years, the issue has come to a boil. Last week, the local airport commission scheduled a public hearing to discuss stiffening penalties for the wayward cabbies. As things now stand, a driver who refuses to carry you and your booze has to go back to the end of the cab line and wait hours for another fare. According to a report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, new rules have been proposed which would require a 30-day suspension for a first offense and revocation of a cabbie’s airport license for two years after the second.
Sounds good to me, but Khalid Elmasry disagrees. He’s spokesman for a group called the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Here’s the MASM’s idea: Color-code the taxis according to whether the drivers accept alcohol.
Yeah, because flying is not enough of a hassle already.
“We will not see this perfect solution,” wrote Elmasry in USA Today, “even though it meets everyone’s needs. In an environment of fear and misunderstanding of everything Muslim, tolerance has become too much to ask.”
In a word: baloney. Out of deference to religious sensibilities, we’ll make it all-beef baloney, but still: baloney.
Frank says: